Capote vs. The Swans
If you are familiar with Ryan Murphy’s hit show Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (or perhaps watched the 2005 film ‘Capote’ starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman), you are familiar with the legacy of writer Truman Capote and the social power he was obsessed with achieving. A certainly flawed individual battling his demons, Capote gave us incredible books such as “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, “In cold blood” and his last “Answered Prayers”. However, it was his fateful article for Esquire “La Cote Basque, 1965”, which spilled confidential details based on his friendships with New York’s more powerful women of high society, that led to his downfall. However, the most interesting part of this story re-entering the pop culture conversation, is revisiting the women who ruled NYC at the time (Slim Keith, C.Z. Guest, Babe Paley, Lee Radziwell), who Capote picked the wrong fight with. Let’s review.
Babe Paley: Born in Boston in 1915, Babe reigned supreme over New York's social scene from the 50s until her untimely death from lung cancer in 1978. Born Barbara Cushing, she was the daughter of prominent neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing and grew up in the tony neighborhood of Brookline, MA., where she and her two older sisters were nicknamed "The Fabulous Cushing Sisters" because of their status as in-demand debutantes, and later, their marriages into prominent American families (Paley's first marriage in 1940 was to sportsman and advertising executive Stanley Grafton Mortimer Jr., a descendant of John Jay, one of America's first chief justices and a signatory of the Declaration of Independence. It ended in divorce in 1946). Babe also had a devastating car accident in Long Island in her youth that required her to undergo extensive cosmetic and dental surgery on her mouth and jaw, though she went on to be known for her beauty and elegance for the rest of her life.
Slim Keith: Born in California in 1917, Mary Raye Gross in Salinas, Keith changed her name a few times, ultimately going by the nickname “Slim.” From a well-off family yet considerably outside the blue-blood bubble, Keith had to hustle to make it in high society. She dropped out of school at 16 and, after meeting William Randolph Hearst and his mistress actress Marion Davies (more on her in another post) found herself enmeshed in the world of entertainment. She became a Hollywood socialite, frequently partying with the likes of Clark Gable and Cary Grant. By 22, she was on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar and, like her pal Babe, became a mainstay of the best-dressed lists of the time. Keith was married not once, not twice, but three times, with her first marriage to director Howard Hawks, her second husband producer Leland Hayward. READ: Slim: Memories of a Rich and Imperfect Life
C.Z. Guest: The biggest blue blood of the bunch, C.Z. Guest was born Lucy Douglas Cochrane in Boston in 1920. The daughter of a prominent investment banker, Guest had an incredibly WASPy upbringing like her friend Babe - horseback riding, gardening, and fox hunting - and like her friends, Babe and Slim, C.Z. was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. However, C.Z. had a bit of a wilder side than her clean-cut appearance would suggest. She appeared as a stage actress in the Ziegfeld Follies in 1944, and she was also painted by Diego Rivera, Salvador Dalí, and Andy Warhol.In 1947, C.Z. married Winston Frederick Churchill Guest, a British-American polo champion and, as his name indicates, a relative of Winston Churchill. Ernest Hemingway was the best man at their wedding. The couple had two children, Alexander and Cornelia Guest, and quite shockingly for the swans, they stayed married until his death in 1982. Guest would go on to have a popular gardening column in the New York Post before her death in 2003. READ: her gardening book
Lee Radziwill: Born in NYC in 1933 as Caroline Lee Bouvier, Lee was the younger sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, a fashion icon, society figure, and had tried to be an actress in her earlier days too. She became a literal princess, marrying Polish royal Prince Stanislaw Albrecht Radziwill in 1959 and later had two children, Anthony and Christina, before they divorced in 1974. In 1988, she married Oscar and Tony-nominated director and choreographer Herbert Ross; they divorced in 2001. READ: Her books Happy Times
*I stumbled across this gem of an interview with Radziwill with the NYT x Sofia Coppola a decade ago.